tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post8142267969787227730..comments2018-03-19T22:23:21.343-04:00Comments on Backreaction: The Multiworse Is ComingSabine Hossenfelderhttps://plus.google.com/111136225362929878171noreply@blogger.comBlogger66125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-31638114490954133602018-03-19T08:26:55.716-04:002018-03-19T08:26:55.716-04:00Thanks for an excellent article, one someone with ...Thanks for an excellent article, one someone with a mere BSEE could follow. I&#39;d add that in their pursuit of funding, particle physics faces a funding problem that climatologist don&#39;t,<br /><br />1. As you mention, any possible risk to our existence has to be almost unimaginable far into the future not a mere ten or twenty years out. Politicians have trouble thinking beyond their next Inklinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05272203500649628022noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-6383216799409647392018-03-18T18:14:48.643-04:002018-03-18T18:14:48.643-04:00Dave: is your calculation public?
Anyway, it soun...Dave: is your calculation public?<br /><br />Anyway, it sounds like it is only intended to apply to fermions that get their mass from a yukawa coupling to the standard model Higgs. A new particle could couple to a new Higgs with a vev at a different scale, or its mass could come from compositeness or from other effects. Mitchellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10768655514143252049noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-83298073861432750272018-03-18T10:45:59.901-04:002018-03-18T10:45:59.901-04:00&quot;I live in the age where vulture capitalism t...&quot;I live in the age where vulture capitalism tries to take everything away from the most amount of people to give as much as possible to a very select few people who have no sane use for the insane amounts of money they already have.&quot;<br /><br />Let&#39;s theorize that these vulture capitalists have half the money in the world. Do they have half the food? Half the cars? Half the housesUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08630589147483611327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-59273811041410037462018-03-18T09:45:07.766-04:002018-03-18T09:45:07.766-04:00It&#39;s more than high time that we go to CERN an...It&#39;s more than high time that we go to CERN and turn the main breaker switch to the &#39;OFF&#39; position. It&#39;s all fun and games until the funds run out.<br /><br />Secondly: <b>there can only n many particles that make up the universe</b>. The universe is there, it&#39;s using mechanics an particles to great the flavour of chaos we are using to make up what is loosely defined as &#39;Howardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08375574649699040656noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-11670941895946770412018-03-18T09:43:36.640-04:002018-03-18T09:43:36.640-04:00Very interesting article and comments. I always th...Very interesting article and comments. I always thought the argument of naturalness was to avoid just-so stories and deus ex machina explanations. But we have examples in astrophysics and cosmology where &quot;degrees&quot; of naturalness allowed incorrect ideas to persist beyond rational defense. So a warning sign that we are reaching limits to a given approach is an idea beauty contest. With Meganhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07668796800865895700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-51043901187201212112018-03-18T02:25:29.623-04:002018-03-18T02:25:29.623-04:00Paddy,
The point which you make, that some long o...Paddy,<br /><br />The point which you make, that some long outstanding observation was eventually successful, is one that people frequently bring up, so I want to comment on this. <br /><br />In almost all cases that have been mentioned to me the phenomenon they were looking for was predicted by an already confirmed theory and/or the non-observation would have left behind an actual inconsistency.Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-21922087092938119412018-03-17T16:06:14.570-04:002018-03-17T16:06:14.570-04:00Bee,
Thanks for another fine article.
I also enjo...Bee,<br />Thanks for another fine article.<br /><br />I also enjoy the comments from your readers. Very informative. I just wish that the snarky political comments were omitted.<br /><br />BillWilliam Lamahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07008478452995874116noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-5587819712492911762018-03-17T12:34:34.911-04:002018-03-17T12:34:34.911-04:00Excellent column Sabine. You are right about the s...Excellent column Sabine. You are right about the sociology; part of the problem is that once an organization like CERN has thousands (or even just hundreds) of staff, the leadership have a moral and sometimes legal responsibility to keep the ball rolling. I hear your point that the propaganda mainly comes from theorists, but when it comes to proposal time, these papers are bound to be prominentlyPaddyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04491442182062182693noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-62835778399351475282018-03-16T16:06:56.876-04:002018-03-16T16:06:56.876-04:00Not really - this is not linear, not by a long sho...Not really - this is not linear, not by a long shot in case of LHC. There is very little chance new physics will be uncovered in the remaining data.Genameisterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03103756743439765081noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-31201093159432456492018-03-16T15:56:20.280-04:002018-03-16T15:56:20.280-04:00Well naturalness arguments aside: I have long held...Well naturalness arguments aside: I have long held a (possibly mistaken) predjudice that it is worth chasing up to about 2 TeV at least. This is based on a classical soliton calculation which indicates that as the Yukawa coupling is increased, the higgs field buckles and is forced to zero in the vicinity of the fermion. The upshot is the fermion mass maxes out at about 2TeV, regardless of how Davehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07795778580063137751noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-62386219800555517732018-03-16T13:49:47.043-04:002018-03-16T13:49:47.043-04:00Thanks! I had great fun writing it!
BTW I&#39;ve ...Thanks! I had great fun writing it!<br /><br />BTW I&#39;ve since realised that part of it (about what happens in the collision region) isn&#39;t quite right. I think I know how to fix it, I just haven&#39;t had time to write it up. But we&#39;re getting quite far off topic...Francis Bursahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18388517749884178638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-17268570530973321442018-03-16T13:38:41.335-04:002018-03-16T13:38:41.335-04:00On funding, perhaps there is encouragement to be f...On funding, perhaps there is encouragement to be found in the US Space Launch System, which continues to be well funded though it has no identified missions or payloads. Point is, it keeps money flowing into Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Utah. Which is, on the evidence, sufficient to keep it going.Hormigahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06526416056094768050noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-60426248130516180632018-03-16T12:59:29.319-04:002018-03-16T12:59:29.319-04:00Francis,
Thanks for the reference, that looks lik...Francis,<br /><br />Thanks for the reference, that looks like a fun paper!Sabine Hossenfelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06151209308084588985noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-49589787601730887592018-03-16T12:55:32.653-04:002018-03-16T12:55:32.653-04:00wereatheist: At very very high energies, circular ...wereatheist: At very very high energies, circular colliders are no longer practical because the energy lost to synchrotron radiation becomes too large (it increases as energy^4). So having stronger magnets doesn&#39;t help. Instead you have to use a linear collider which doesn&#39;t suffer from synchrotron radiation.<br /><br />This would of course have to be very long (possibly that&#39;s where Francis Bursahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18388517749884178638noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-82577398725795309232018-03-16T11:23:38.562-04:002018-03-16T11:23:38.562-04:00&quot;When looking a hundred years into the future...&quot;When looking a hundred years into the future, &quot;reasonable&quot; covers a pretty large territory, too large to spend trillions now.&quot;<br /><br />Translation: you don&#39;t care what happens 100 years from now, because caring might cost you some money (i.e., reduce your life style in some way - money itself has no value unless it is spent; most measures would act to conserve JimVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10198704789965278981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-43243293874084274252018-03-16T11:04:58.005-04:002018-03-16T11:04:58.005-04:00In your article you mention that potential vacuum ...In your article you mention that potential vacuum decay won&#39;t occur until the distant future if it is determined that we are in fact a metastable universe.<br /><br />This is not necessarily true. Vacuum decay can occur at any time, and may already be propagating through the universe at this very moment, but we would not know until the event was upon us due to the principle of locality (if tstllhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12391932007916918780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-53798482067451713982018-03-16T10:35:16.351-04:002018-03-16T10:35:16.351-04:00Could it be that mathematics does not represent ou...Could it be that mathematics does not represent our Universe, merely our perception of the Universe?Pierre Clouthierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14656043477858844404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-54199281709766037532018-03-16T10:29:27.454-04:002018-03-16T10:29:27.454-04:00Jonathan Starr,
Yes, the &quot;15 orders of magni...Jonathan Starr,<br /><br />Yes, the &quot;15 orders of magnitude&quot; figure comes from the Planck length. The associated energy scale, the Planck energy, is around 10^28 eV; the LHC is around 10^13ish,hence the extra 15 orders of magnitude.<br /><br />This is the kind of energy scale where we&#39;re shoving so much energy into such a small space that gravitational effects should become about asMax Greasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13750140032228953292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-52279411330210118572018-03-16T09:57:26.294-04:002018-03-16T09:57:26.294-04:00&quot; Anyone who could pass a secondary-school ge...&quot; Anyone who could pass a secondary-school general science class and who looks at the data can tell that what scientists are saying about the planet is reasonable. Those who can&#39;t/don&#39;t have no basis to doubt the scientists, unless they just don&#39;t care.&quot;<br /><br />I think what the scientists say about the climate is often, maybe mostly &quot;reasonable.&quot; Reasonable isUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08630589147483611327noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-42417346347666729412018-03-16T06:36:33.673-04:002018-03-16T06:36:33.673-04:00Is it me, or is the entire idea of scientists maki...<i>Is it me, or is the entire idea of scientists making the assumption that &quot;there just can&#39;t be fine tuning&quot; rather tainting science in itself?</i><br /><br />People used to think that the internet would provide so much information that people would be better informed than before it existed. In many cases, though, what happens is that there is so much information that people spendPhillip Helbighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12067585245603436809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-31207617524463300212018-03-16T05:04:28.668-04:002018-03-16T05:04:28.668-04:00Tom Aaron,
You are certainly more optimistic abou...Tom Aaron,<br /><br />You are certainly more optimistic about the prospects for AI uncovering the &quot;secrets of existence&quot; than I am! AI algorithms can be very good at analyzing large amounts of data and finding patterns, but my understanding is that it can be very difficult to then work backward from the results to get a human-friendly, logical/coherent chain of reasoning for why those Martyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18113481752481566995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-24507543663191874152018-03-15T20:05:36.315-04:002018-03-15T20:05:36.315-04:00Jonathan Starr:
&quot;Idk if &#39;diameter = orbi...Jonathan Starr:<br /><br /><b>&quot;</b>Idk if &#39;diameter = orbit of Neptune&#39; is the same as &#39;15 orders of magnitude more energy then LHC&#39;<b>&quot;</b><br />No. Collision energy is proportional to the radius/diameter of the accelerator (with fixed field strength of the magnets). So it&#39;s just 9 orders of magnitude. Bee is obviously more pessimist than your source.<br /><b>&quot;wereatheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11023808397322064245noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-74099765111275583302018-03-15T19:50:55.828-04:002018-03-15T19:50:55.828-04:00Chad,
You seem to suggest that with humanity havi...Chad,<br /><br />You seem to suggest that with humanity having so many high priority, practical needs that are still unmet, we might be better served if the large sums spent on particle physics research were instead spent elsewhere. I think there are several problems with that way of looking at cost vs. benefit of particle research.<br /><br />First, every important unsolved problem almost Martyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18113481752481566995noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-35348181786684771602018-03-15T16:31:09.036-04:002018-03-15T16:31:09.036-04:00I&#39;ve been in science research for just over 4 ...I&#39;ve been in science research for just over 4 decades. It&#39;s not enough to ask if a project contributes to science...it is at what cost and at the expenditure of what intellectual capital? CERN was worthwhile...son of CERN not so much.<br /><br />My expectation is that physics wont be advanced as an academic discipline but as a commercial one. Whatever the &#39;secrets&#39; are of Tom Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00466709989146738234noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22973357.post-75656097505310809832018-03-15T16:21:07.626-04:002018-03-15T16:21:07.626-04:00&quot;Nice dig about people not caring what happen...&quot;Nice dig about people not caring what happens to the planet in 100 years. It&#39;s also possible that they don&#39;t put a lot of credence in what scientists say about what the planet will be like in 100 years.&quot;<br /><br />The latter implies the former. Anyone who could pass a secondary-school general science class and who looks at the data can tell that what scientists are saying JimVhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10198704789965278981noreply@blogger.com